Edward George Dyson

A New Girl Up At White’s

THERE’S a fresh track down the paddockThrough the lightwoods to the creek,And I notice Billy CraddockAnd Maloney do not speak,And The Snag is slyly bitterWhen he’s criticising Bill,And there’s quite a foreign glitterOn the fellows at the mill.

Sid M‘Mahon’s turned out a dandyWith a masher coat and tie,And the engine-driver, Sandy,Curls his whiskers on the sly:All the boys wear paper collarsAnd their tombstone shirts of nights,So it’s ten to one in dollarsThere’s a new girl up at White’s.

She’s a charmer from the river,But she steeps the lads in gloom,With her blue eyes all a-quiverAnd her hair like wattle-bloom;Though she’s pretty and beguiling,And so lit up, like, with funThat the flowers turn to her smiling,Just as if she was the sun.

But I wish she’d leave the valley,For the camp is dull to me,Now the mill hands never rallyFor the regulation spree,And there’s not another jokerGives a tinker’s curse for nap.,Or will take a hand at pokerOr at euchre with a chap!

Tom won’t stir us with his fiddleBy the boilers as he didWhile Bob stepped it in the middle,And we passed the billy-lid.Ah! we had some gay old nights there,But the boys now don’t agree,And they hang about at White’s there,When they’ve togged up after tea.

With the gloves we have no battle;Now they sneak away and moonRound with White, discussing cattleAll the Sunday afternoon.There’s a want of old uprightness,Too, has come upon the push,And a sort of cold politenessThat’s not called for in the bush.

They’re all off, too, in that quarter;Kate goes sev’ral times a weekSeeing Andy Kelly’s daughter,Jimmy’s sister, up the creek;And this difference seems a pity,Since their chances are so slim—While they are running after Kitty,She is running after Jim.